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Nice Norwegian fjords, too bad about the company!

Sail Date:
July 2011

Destination:
Baltic Sea

Embarkation:
Copenhagen

We took a one-week cruise with Costa Luminosa to the Norwegian Fjords, sailing out of Copenhagen, and visiting Flam, Geiranger, Bergen, Stavanger, Kristiansand (instead of Oslo initially planned) and back to Copenhagen. The scenery is beautiful, although the persisting low clouds due to high humidity levels in the fjords, kept the sun from shining and further improving an already beautiful scenery.

The itinerary is great, as it allows to cover some of the best fjords in the region. Too bad the Oslo stopover was cancelled during the trip, due to the tragic events earlier, as Kristiansand is clearly not a suitable alternative in terms of scenery or things to do.

The ship is generally good, and in particularly comfort in our minisuite room for 3 people was very good on this new ship.

What disappointed us was the way in which Costa maximizes their profits by not only filling the whole cruise ship, but also either charging for things we were not expected to pay extra More
(e.g. mineral water),overcharging for other things (example: prices for excursion tours we could book ourselves on the Internet were uplifted by 50% minimum!) or constantly "nagging" people to buy additional services (spa, etc). Clearly, they are taking advantage of having a captive customer group to milk them as much as possible.

Food was generally fine, although the buffet selection was only "average".

Entertainment was OK, but clearly this is not the strongest point of Costa either.

All in all, I would say great itinerary, very good ship, good food, but so-so on overall company (a taste of Italian family outings!) and value for money Less